alt Hacker NewsDon’t forget that all MacBook models are “integrated graphics.” If you start doing graphical stuff or gaming you’ll need more RAM. If you’ve got a Windows laptop with an RTX 5050/5060 with its own dedicated memory, then yeah, you don’t really need more than 16GB unless you’re doing something specific.
Integrated graphics are constrained but often sufficient to play AAA games.
Panther Lake laptops are roughly equivalent to an RTX 4050, which is only a single generation old. Obviously not the strongest GPU to compare against but you’re also pulling a lot less wattage doing it.
I’m sure your 8GB device is working great, but someone buying a brand new device really should avoid that since the implication is that they’re going to keep that device for somewhere between 3-7 years.
Do those laptops not have on the order of ~64 GB/s bandwidth? Meanwhile your example of an RTX 4050 is a mobile SKU with 192 GB/s while the lowest entry level dGPU from that generation, the RTX 4060, boasts 272 GB/s. The RTX 4070 range ups that to 500 GB/s and the high end breaks 1 TB/s.
tl;dr iGPU vs dGPU memory bandwidth is a >10 year difference.
So now to double check my guestimate of 3 to 4 generations from earlier. Entry level RTX 30 448 GB/s in 2020, eventually downgraded to 168 GB/s in 2024. Entry level RTX 20 448 GB/s in 2018 eventually downgraded to 336 GB/s in 2019. You have to go all the way back to the GeForce 10 series to dip below 100 GB/s and even then that's due to some highly unusual configurations introduced many years after the initial launch. At launch in 2016 the lowest end GTX 1050 pulled 112 GB/s which is nearly 2x Panther Lake IIUC.